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I have a question. I am a high school English teacher, and

 

Customer Question

I have a question. I am a high school English teacher, and our principals were notified in writing that at our upcoming General Assembly, a general prayer could not be said.
Apparently, one teacher from a local high school complained. Because one individual contested the prayer, does that mean the rest of us in the school district cannot agree in prayer with a speaker who, in the past, led the whole assembly in prayer?
If the building for the assembly is paid by federal money, does that mean that we cannot say a prayer?


Sylvia De Leon
English teacher

 

Optional Information:
Country relating to Question: United States
What have you tried so far?: Sylvia United States Texas I've looked in the internet before, but I haven't found anything that specfically states that prayer should not be allowed at a school's General Assembly.

Submitted: 245 days and 8 hours ago.
Category: Legal
Value: $48
Status: CLOSED

Accepted Answer

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Expert:  NateLawAnswers replied 245 days and 8 hours ago.

Thank you for your question. Be sure to go ahead and bookmark www.nateanswers.com for future questions.

Any kind of prayer during an official school sponsored event would be considered an unconstitutional establishment of religion under the First Amendment. This has been confirmed over and over in the federal courts since the 1960s. The exception would be for a non-school sponsored activity on school grounds. In those cases, prayer is still allowed.

Two Supreme Court cases apply to situations like this

Lee v. Weisman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_v._Weisman)

Santa Fe Independent School Dist. v. Doe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Fe_Independent_School_Dist._v._Doe)

What the school system knows is if they do not comply the ACLU will be filing a lawsuit almost immediately and the school system will suffer the Litigation costs. That's why one complaint is enough to prevent the prayer being a part of the assembly even though the vast majority of people are for it.

Please click 'Reply To Expert' unless you consider this dialog complete and you are 100% satisfied with my service (not the website or the situation). If you are ready to rate my service, selecting anything less than 3 out of 5 will negatively affect my rating.

Thanks.
Nate

Expert TypeAttorney
Category: Legal
Pos. Feedback: 96.4 %
Accepts: 5885
Answered: 8/17/2012

Experience: Over 8 years of legal practice.

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